Bagenalstown Gaels face Eire Og in a Carlow SFC Semi-Final at Netwatch Cullen Park on Sunday.
By Cian O’Connell
On Sunday at Netwatch Cullen Park Eire Og, the most prolific winners of the Carlow Senior Football Championship, face Bagenalstown Gaels, the newest club in the county.
It has been an interesting stint for the GAA in Bagenalstown with the amalgamation of St Andrew’s, Erin’s Own, and juvenile outfit Muinebheag.
That Bagenalstown Gaels are delivering on the hurling and football fields of Carlo in 2019 has added to the feel good factor.
At the end of 2017 Carlow GAA Operations Manager Ronan Dempsey facilitated meetings with the three existing stakeholders in the town.
While the process was long and demanding, Dempsey is encouraged with how the Bagenalstown Gaels story is unfolding. “We started in November and December 2017, I facilitated the talks between the three clubs,” Dempsey says.
“We had three delegates from each of the clubs down there. It was a slow burner, but then it started to get momentum. We finally got to an EGM process in November of last year. Then they had a full amalgamation AGM of the new club in December so they were good to go from January this year.”
Dempsey is hopeful that Bagenalstown Gaels can continue to develop further in the coming weeks, months, and years. “This seems to have completely galvanised them to be under the one banner in the town,” Dempsey adds.
“Bagenalstown would have a decent pick, it is our second biggest town in the county. They would have a very good primary school structure in the town, it was just about bringing them together to harness that potential that is there.
“Bagenalstown, the catchement area, would be the town and its surrounding area. Carlow is so small in that everywhere is close to other clubs.
“You'd have clubs not too far away from the town. Coming together united the town and parish as a whole unit that could progress forward together."
Dempsey stresses the leadership and ambition of the nine people representing the three different clubs as being key to the outcome.
“Of course we are thrilled with it, but the impetus had to come from them themselves,” Dempsey states. “It is really down to those nine people, who worked with me as a facilitator over the 13 months.
“They were the real driving force behind it, three from each of the separate clubs as they were at that time. What divided them more so was football and hurling. You had one adult football, one adult hurling, and then the juvenile were a combined group with hurling and football underneath.
Shane Clarke has played Senior Championship Football for Carlow.
“The adult clubs were nearly looking enviously at the juvenile club with what they were able to do. It made complete sense.
“Maybe it just needed someone from the outside to give their perspective on it. Perhaps the County Board were able to help in that regard, but certainly it came from them.”
A trip to Ennis in Clare during the process was critical according to Dempsey. “The process was arduous, we had lots of issues, as you would have, it was very methodical and slow, we took every stage step by step,” Dempsey remarks.
“We went to visit a club in Clare, The Banner GAA, in Ennis. They did something similar on a lower scale. We met them, we all headed off on a road trip, the nine delegates and myself. We had a good chat with them.
“It was a good little stepping stone towards where we wanted to go because they saw it could work. There was a lot of history involved in this. They were separate for something along the lines of 70, 80 or 90 years.”
Still Dempsey feels it is a natural thing that Bagenalstown was founded to compete in the Senior Football and Intermediate Hurling Championships.
“Absolutely, history weighs heavily on the whole thing with family ties over the decades before,” Dempsey admits.
“It was incredible when the AGM was called that it was a landslide in favour of amalgamation. It was very close to being unanimous out of all that attended, something like 260 at the AGM.”
Ultimately it is an interesting time for Carlow GAA with Dempsey believing that the club and inter-county games can prosper.
“We have rejigged things a lot in the last five years,” Dempsey says. “We just needed to tighten structures.
“We needed to put a platform for all of our teams, not only our seniors, but for all the teams to thrive. In years gone by Carlow would have good teams here or there, sporadically, but what we needed to do was to make sure we had a pathway, that every year we have kids coming through our system, not only adding to their clubs, but thrive at county level too.
“Structure was a huge thing for us, making sure the avenues are clear and transparent, that people know where they want to get to be it at club or county level.”
In Bagenalstown such focus and willingness to graft is being reflected on and off the field.